Overview

THE ELLEN SINOPOLI DANCE COMPANY CELEBRATES ITS 35TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON.

 

In celebration of its 35th anniversary season, ESDC is offering 35 free performances across the 2025-26 season and around the Capital Region. The series commenced in September 2025 and will continue through June 2026 with performances taking place in mostly non-traditional performance venues where people are already gathered such as libraries, community centers, campuses, office buildings, parks, malls, playgrounds, galleries and museums. They are low-tech, simple events celebrating dance in its most elemental form; providing audiences with an up-close and personal experience with dance.

 

Located in NYS’s Capital Region, ESDC’s commitment to CREATE, COLLABORATE, EDUCATE, and PARTNER remains in the forefront as it shares its work with diverse audiences through concerts, showcases, residencies, workshops, and educational and community outreach. Past commissions include new work for Bach Cello Suites Workshop, Chesterwood Museum, The Egg, Fenimore Art Museum, Hyde Collection, Olana Partnership, Opalka Gallery/Russell Sage College, Saratoga County Arts Council, Schenectady Symphony Orchestra, Schenectady Museum, St Cecelia Orchestra and UAlbany. Our newest commission, Celebrated Emblems, with the Musicians of Ma’alwyck marks the first-ever collaboration between Musicians of Ma’alwyck and ESDC. ESDC will create and perform two new works inspired by the music of James Lee III and Missy Mazzoli. These multifaceted performances will explore the concept of American emblems, or the symbols of American identity. 

As the resident company of The Egg Center for the Performing Arts in Albany for 34 years, ESDC is part of its highly successful dance season that presents many NY-based, national, and international dance companies. ESDC’s performances at professional, regional, and college theaters, community centers, art galleries, public playgrounds, public schools, libraries, museums, historic sites, and storefronts include venues in MA, NYC, and throughout 17 NYS counties. Within the Capital Region, ESDC has performed at Albany’s The Egg, NYS Museum, WAMC’s The Linda, the Opalka Gallery, and Albany Institute of History and Art. ESDC was featured on WMHT’s AHA!: A House for Arts program in the Spring of 2020. Additional locations include Troy’s historic Gasholder Building, Arts Center of the Capital Region, and Troy Savings Bank Music Hall; Schenectady’s Proctors and Schenectady Museum; and Cambridge’s Hubbard Hall. ESDC has performed at many of the area’s institutes of higher education including College of St. Rose, FMCC, HVCC, Rensselaer, Russell Sage, Skidmore, SUNY Cobleskill, UAlbany, and Union. ESDC has been invited to perform at gubernatorial inaugurations, art center and gallery openings, senior centers, fundraising events for area school districts and other not-for-profit organizations, First Night celebrations for Albany, Saratoga, and Chatham, Albany’s First Friday and Tulip Festival, and Troy’s Troy Night Out events. NYC performances include Lincoln Center, Mulberry Street Theater, St. Mark’s Church and Ryan Theater for the DUMBO Festival and Riverside Theater. In MA, ESDC has appeared at the Chesterwood Museum, Tanglewood, and Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out.

 

ESDC’s film project, “Slipping into One”, has been in its development stages since 2022 and began initial filming in June 2024 followed by film shoots in fall 2024 and spring 2025 at the Wells, NY studios of the sculptors Caroline Ramersdorfer and John Van Alstine. The resulting site-specific multifaceted film will feature ESDC Artistic Director Ellen Sinopoli and her dancers, Van Alsine and Ramersdorfer, musicians Brian Melick and Maria Zemantauski and film director Bat-Sheva Guez. It will be screened at multiple film festivals and private screenings throughout NYS and beyond in 2026.

Committed to bringing dance to underserved communities and populations through Arts-In-Education, ESDC offers performances and workshops in and around NYS’s Capital Region. Residencies, workshops, and/or performances bring the excitement of exploring the creative process to children and young adults in both urban and rural schools. Our educational programs introduce and explore modern dance in a pure performing sense and utilize dance to teach curricula and enhance understanding of the connectedness of art and everyday life. By making these early connections with an art form, we create a respect for and understanding of the arts and its performing artists. This carries over into adult years and is passed down to future generations. For the last several years, ESDC has partnered with SPAC for its Classical Kids educational programs for middle school students. It has long term residencies within the Cohoes, Gloversville and Troy School Districts. Specially designed educational programming includes Celtic Footprints, Choreophysics, Dance by Chance, If Books Could Dance!, Science In Motion and Undercover Playground.

ESDC’s outreach programming continues to expand as we bring our work to community centers, daycare centers, public playgrounds, libraries, art galleries, and centers for special populations. ESDC’s outreach partnerships have included organizations like the Center for Disability Services for which ESDC taught creative movement workshops at the Smith Center (adult population) and Langan School (ages pre-school – 21) as part of the “Creative Movement” program, a one-of-a-kind collaborative community partnership with MOVE–Mobility Opportunities Via Experience. Our creative movement workshops for these populations are designed to introduce the joy of dance, movement for self-expression, and creativity into their everyday lives.

 

ESDC has received funding from the New York State Council on the Arts for multi-year general operating support, individual artist projects, long-term Arts-in-Education residencies, and three long-term residencies at Kaatsbaan International Dance Center. It has received support from Bender Family Foundation, WG Broughton Foundation, Capital Region Living Magazine/Saratoga Living Magazine, Charles R. Wood Foundation, Charles and Cornelia Hume Charitable Trust, Capital District Physicians Health Plan, Community Foundation for the Capital Region’s Robert C. Reilly Salary Fund, Howard and Bush Foundation, the Mary Jane Dike Family, Meet the Composer, the Opalka Family, NYS DanceForce, NYS Music Fund for the commission of an original composition for “Spill Out!,” Partners in Dance, Poets & Writers, PriceChopper’s Golub Foundation, Stewart’s Shops/Dake Family, Ed Swyer/Stuyvesant Plaza, Inc, Troy Redevelopment Fund and the Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation.

 

Diversity Policy:

The Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company, Inc, a Nonprofit Organization, is committed to a diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment where all board members, staff, volunteers, and members feel respected and valued regardless of gender, age, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation or identity, disability, education, or any other bias.

We’re committed to being nondiscriminatory and providing equal opportunities for employment, volunteering, and advancement in all areas of our work.

We respect the value that diverse life experiences bring to our board and leadership and we strive to listen to their views and give them value.

We’re committed to modeling diversity, inclusion, and equity and maintaining fair and equal treatment for all.

 

Our current Board of Directors includes:

President: Hollis Dorman
Vice-President: Joyce Chupka, Vision Power Consulting
Treasurer: Christopher Hanse, NYS Senate
Secretary: André Malo-Robles, Skidmore College and SPAC

Directors:
Kim Engel, NYS DanceForce
Arthene LaValley
Ellen Sinopoli, Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company